


Always Vulgar, and Often Convincing

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Anal Sex, Crossdressing, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, References to The Importance of Being Earnest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 16:54:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13663269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: For an evening, Watson tries on Lady Bracknell.ACD Holmes/Watson. PWP.





	Always Vulgar, and Often Convincing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SilencetheGolden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilencetheGolden/gifts).



> Note: this starts off with a D/S vibe, with Holmes as sub, but that's not most of the fic.
> 
> Many references to Oscar Wilde's _The Importance of Being Earnest_ , specifically the character of Lady Bracknell.

It all began with two moments: one profound, one trivial.

Profundity arrived first. Holmes was cradled in my arms, the twisted length of bedsheet running across his nude body in the manner of a meandering river, a river, unlike its liquid counterpart, that readily manifested the activities of its traversers in the stains of sweat, blood, semen, tears, and excrement that soiled it.

Holmes had asked me, no, he’d begged me to break him. His mind refused to quiet, refused to still, refused to rest. Like a wayward pup, it would not obey, then grew tired of its toys and matured into an unruly monster. I perceived with crystal clarity and abject fear that my most beloved was in danger of clawing himself, and perhaps not just figuratively, out of his own skin.

I knew it was me or the bottle, me or the needle, me or worse, and it was the worse that terrified me most. And thus, I agreed to his plaintive request. And, thus, with knowledge of the human body and the human heart and the both and more belonging to one Mister Sherlock Holmes, with wisdom borne of war and anatomist’s slabs as well as puzzles, pains, and problems that spanned silk-curtained parlours and rag-and-bone rookeries, I went to work.

It wasn’t the first such requests that Holmes had made of me, but the response was the lengthiest, most arduous, most demanding in many respects, of any that I’d supplied.

I’d hurt him, but not harmed him, and now I held him, held him, held him, as if he were the most precious thing in the world; as if the pieces of him would scatter and float away on air, on water, like a love letter torn and tossed into the Thames, if I did not hold them together myself.

I held him tenderly in my arms and rocked him, a little, like a mother.

Such a holy tableau, we might have been carved in marble, but this Pietà lived and moved. I studied him, his face, his form, as I might a sculpted work of art, and watched him, breath by breath, come back to himself, and in the moment just before he stirred, I asked myself a question.

Would I be able to entrust myself to him as he just had to me?

Doubtful, and not for any deficit of Holmes’s, but it seemed to require a quality, or blend, if you will, of bravery that I lacked.  

I believed my thoughts to be silent, and perhaps they were. Nevertheless, when Holmes spoke, his first words were surprisingly intelligible and on point.

“If you did, and I make no condition or expectation of it, I would verily enslave myself, my wealth, my prowess, my faculties, mental, physical, and otherwise, to your care.”

Spoken words are ephemeral by nature, but those I could almost see written in the ink of his blood with the quill of his finger, on the river that lay about us.

* * *

The triviality came later but in closer proximity to the event itself. And it came as a result of a play, of all things.

It was exceedingly rare that Holmes and I attend a theatrical production with no musical attributes; Holmes preferred operas, concerts, even slightly lighter fare, as a concession to my tastes, but he was, at that moment, experiencing a disturbing—disturbing to me, knowing what such inactivity did to his moods and his unhealthy penchants—drought in cases of interest and so, was more receptive to uncommon diversions.

How receptive, how uncommon, and how diverting, I could not have fathomed at the time.

The play was pure wit, charm, and cleverness, like a rich, many-tiered cake of which my crude mind was only able to consume the first two layers. I longed to view it again, perhaps after reading the script, if that were possible, that I might appreciate it more.

I said as much to Holmes. That was my first curious notion, but not the triviality. Holmes’s response was a noncommittal grunt.

A second curious notion, which was the triviality, took hold of me as I contemplated the play’s cast.

When Holmes and I were back in Baker Street and I had one whiskey and soda in my belly and another in my hand, I put spoken words to silent thought.

“I’d make an awful woman,” I said, apropos of absolutely nothing.

Holmes snorted. It was a delightful noise.

He eyed me, then took up his glass and swished the contents about; the contents were, by the way, entirely soda, Holmes only feigned a taste for whiskey for appearance’s sake.

“I could make you into a handsome woman,” he posited. “Of a certain age,” he added, then took a sip of his drink.

My eyebrows rose.

“It would, however,” Holmes continued, “require a horrific sacrifice, one that I would never, ever ask of you.”

My eyebrows fell, and instinctively, my fingers went to my upper lip.

Holmes nodded. “A small one might be forgiven, but a thoroughbred like yours would not do.”

I laughed, then sighed, then thought, and my thoughts returned to that day that I’d held Holmes in my arms.

Something stirred.

“You were considering a trip to Norway, were you not?” I asked, thinking of the time required to regrow a serviceable moustache.

“Yes, given the current state of business.” He tilted his head. His gaze grew darker and a bit heated, but he was a patient man and said nothing.

I had a vision of myself in Holmes’s arms, in his care, being transformed into something else. I was, in a word, intrigued.

“Do it. Make me a woman. For an evening. Let’s go to see the play again.”

Holmes’s eyes flashed. His nostrils flared.

“Three days,” he said. “I require three days to amass the necessary supplies. Three days for you to change your mind, which you may do at any moment, my dear Watson.”

I nodded. “Very well. Three days.”

* * *

My prick was tenting the silk of Holmes’s dressing gown before the blade even made an appearance.

He stepped before me, brought forth the instrument, noted my stiffened condition with a lone glance, then tried, and failed, to stifle a smirk.

He looked me in the eye, then allowed his gaze to flutter like a distracted moth all about me, then caught my eye again, then licked his lips in a manner that almost, _almost_ , had me on my knees.

“I have a new-found respect for your powers of concentration, Watson.”

“I’m sorry, Holmes—” I began.

He put two fingers to my lips and, with a much-sobered countenance, shook his head.

“Absolutely no apologies, Watson. One word, and you know the word of which I speak, and the curtain falls on this little drama of ours, and there will not be a speck of remonstrance or ill will on my part. I would only caution you that,” he lowered his gaze and his face smoothed at evidence of my member’s flagging interest, “sudden movements are ill-advised.”

I smiled and motioned for him to continue.

I closed my eyes and enjoyed, yes, enjoyed the sensations: the scrape of the blade, the heat of the wet towel, the coolness of the air.

“Mirror?” he asked when he was done.

I shook my head. “Not until you’ve finished.”

I studied my costume as he cleaned up. It was a simple, but elegant _ensemble_ , dark aubergine in colour.

Handsome, as he’d said, but not eye-catching, both desired attributes for our purposes. The undergarments spread across the bed and a pair of chairs appeared to be legion and, I confess, a bit perplexing.

Holmes turned with arms extended, an expectant smile on his lips. If my nude face disturbed him, he gave no indication of it. In fact, he seemed excited, eager, even.

“Ready?” he asked.

I nodded. “I am clay in the brickmaker’s hands.”

He invited me to sit on the edge of his bed and then laid various silky, gauzy, lacy, ribbon-y bits beside me.

He knelt by my feet and said, “We will start from the bottom, I think.”

Stockings. Suspenders. Tiny swathes of daintily-trimmed fabric that did nothing to contain my growing erection.

“Is this,” I breathed, “typical?”

He shook his head. He was keeping his lips pressed tight to disguise what might have been very ragged breathing.

“Bits of Parisian frippery.” His voice held a note of strain, and that note did everything to me. “They’re an indulgence. A whim. Of mine.”

Then I was standing. He was kneeling. His hands flew in swift, caressing circles over my buttocks, down my legs, up my legs, across my stiff prick.

“My God, Watson, how do you do it?!” he cried.

I fell hard upon the bed, throwing off the dressing gown with one shrug and spreading my legs in wanton invitation.

“I don’t. Or don’t you remember?” I replied.    

“I don’t remember anything,” he confessed hoarsely before yanking the damp silk aside.

* * *

Fucking Holmes’s face was a decidedly masculine pleasure. I growled. I grunted. I fed him everything he wanted, everything his frantic movements said that he was hungering for, that his moans were begging for, which was, in the end, much more than his orifice could take.

His eyes and mouth wept with force of my filling, thrusting.

But I didn’t stop.

His fingernails sank into my buttocks like claws, pulling me nearer, impaling himself deeper. It was painful, of course, but I suppose the discomfort was equal to that of his scalp, where I had him, vise-like, by the follicles.

Which is to say, no pain at all, just very sharp, very pointed, very impatient lust.

I came down his throat.

He coughed. He sputtered. He spit. He opened his trousers and spent himself on the floor.

Then he looked up, the lower half of his face wet, his eyes blood-shot, as if my prick had strangled him, and flashed a toothy grin.

“I have a weakness for Parisian frippery,” he croaked.

“As do I,” I replied with the puckered-lip blown kiss of a shameless cad.

We shared a mischievous chuckle, like a single, stolen, schoolboy cigarette, then Holmes heaved a heavy sigh and looked at the other clothing. He licked his lips and said,

“Well, onto less Continental matters.”

Those matters proved to be layer upon layer of undergarments, which, without Holmes’s guidance, I should never have managed to arrange upon my frame properly.

The most memorable was the corset.

“Good Lord, Holmes!”

“Yes.”

“This is medieval torture!” I panted.

He hummed. “If you could…”

It, the crushing Amazonian river monster! And I, the goat!

“No, I cannot!” I declared, expelling the remainder of air in my lungs.

He looked at me, then gave a curt nod. “Very well. Perhaps you should lie here for a minute and accustom yourself to it—”

“How does one do that, pray tell?!” I cried.

“—while I tend to myself a bit.”

‘A bit’ was not an exaggeration. Very shortly, Holmes was helping me into the rest of it. The rest of it included the dress as well as thick socks and a pair of boots that were borrowed from a theatrical company and were specifically designed to keep people in voluminous costume rooted to the ground. Holmes assured me that the shoes would not be seen but would help me to avoid toppling over. Later, I was to understand the wisdom of this and be very grateful for it.

Finally, I was dressed.

“Now, your face,” said Holmes.

‘My face,’ however, had to be postponed because of my inability to sit properly in my cage. I called it a cage for it felt like one. After a lengthy set of instructions and an even lengthier practise, basic competence was achieved, and Holmes sat opposite me like an artist before a new canvas.

“This is what you do to yourself,” I observed as he powdered, plucked, and painted.

He nodded and shushed me. “Let me work, my dear.”

My dear.

Not ‘my dear man.’

I giggled.

* * *

I was making my hundredth lap around the sitting room when Holmes appeared.

I smiled. He was at his most dapper, in elegant evening dress with hair slicked to shine.

“I should like,” I said, softening my voice as I had been directed, “to view myself now, Mister Holmes.”

He gallantly offered me his arm and led me to the mirror.

“Good Lord!” I cried, in my own voice.

To say I did not recognise myself would be grave understatement.

The wig. The hat. The face.

I blinked.

The woman in the glass blinked, too. Her lacquered eyes grew wide. She raised a gloved hand to her powdered face and her lace-covered décolleté.

“Mister Holmes,” she said, in utter awe.

“Yes,” he agreed. “It is remarkable. I confess that I have grave doubts that I would recognise you myself, in altered circumstance.”

“I am still unsteady on my feet.”

“Move slowly but know that I shall have a firm hand on you whenever it is feasible.”

“It’s like steering a ship, but one is, at once, captain and vessel and treacherous sea!”

“Indeed.”

I turned, and he lowered my veil.

* * *

I did not relax until I was safely ensconced in my seat and the theatre lights had dimmed. But then I quite lost myself in the play, only being jolted—or rather squeezed—aware of my condition when the cage prevented its captive from fully expressing amusement.

“How did I do?” I asked when the hansom was clip-clopping en route to Baker Street.

“Fabulously,” he said, his tone dripping with pride. “So well that I am tempted to suggest dinner at Simpson’s—”

“No,” I said softly.

“No,” he echoed.

* * *

I paced.

“Mister Holmes,” I said in a theatrical voice, removing my gloves and striking my open palm with them for emphasis, “you may stand.”

“Thank you, m’lady. I prefer the indecorous state of semi-recumbency,” he said, leaning back in his armchair.

“I am bound to tell you that you are not on my list of eligible detectives, but I am prepared to enter your name in my list, should your answers be what a wealthy matron with a lost Pekingese truly requires. Do you smoke?”

“Like a chimney,” said Holmes with a grin.

“I’m glad to hear it. A detective should have an occupation for the other twenty-three hours of the day, that is, when he’s not recovering poodles. Also, I have always been of the opinion that a detective should know everything or nothing. Which do you?”

“I know everything.”

“Excellent. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural omniscience. Omniscience is a like a good, strong cup of tea, muck about with it too much and all it’s good for is watering the rhododendron.”

“M’lady, I should like to give you a demonstration of my skill as a detective.”

I halted and turned abruptly towards him with one plucked and penciled eyebrow raised.

He patted his lap and extended his arms.

I floated to him, on a wobbly sea.

* * *

“…and so, you see, m’lady, I have special tools for finding things.”

I bit back a groan.

It was a Herculean task to stay upright, composed in Holmes’s lap. Beneath the mountain of skirts, he had just taken my prick and bollocks in his newly-slicked hands.

“This, for example, may be a trio of very important clues,” he whispered into my ear. “Right here.”

The skirts rustled as my lower body undulated.

I tried, in vain, to still myself. It was just too delicious, the fondling and the stroking. Holmes knew just the right pressure, the right rhythm, to most efficiently kindle my lust.

“You appear to be very skilled, indeed,” I murmured. I felt my hat swaying atop the wig, which was itself shifting slightly as the rest of my body rocked into his expert touch.

“I have an instinct about these things, honed from many years of success in this profession. I believe, m’lady, that I am very close to a resolution in your case.” He sped up his frigging; the hand caressing my bollocks stretched, then travelled, deft fingertips teasing, tickling along my perineum to my rim. “Very close. With only a bit more effort, I think….”

I licked my lips and looked down at him through curtains of false eyelashes. “I shan’t argue, Mister Holmes. I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.”

He grinned a wolfish grin. The pumping fist tightened ‘round my prick; the other hand returned to cup, then squeeze my bollocks.

My hips bucked, and I came to crisis, perched on his knee, before the fire, with a high-pitched, breathy ‘Oh!’

The skirts barely rippled, but the jerk of my toros sent my hat and wig tumbling. They landed between us on a sea of aubergine.

I looked at Holmes. He looked at me. Then we burst into laughter.

Or he did. I attempted it, but the cage allowed for only a shallow, fish-on-land gasping.

“Norbury,” I panted. “It. Is. Difficult. To. Laugh. In. A. Corset.”

He nodded, then brought his hands up from beneath the skirts and grasped me by the waist. He made to lift cage and captive at once, easing me to my feet as he remarked “And without laughter, can you be the one I know, the one I love?”

At his words, I started, lost my balance, and collapsed, costume and all, back into his arms.

I clung to him then looked up, my astonishment obvious.

His grey eyes shone with tears.

“Oh, Watson,” he said mournfully. “If it is a genuine surprise, then I have failed miserably as a lover and a friend. I love you, my dear, my dear man, whatever, whomever you are. In all manifestations, in any age or circumstance.”

“But the words…” I protested feebly.

He’d never said them aloud. What did it mean that he said them now—?

I had no time to ponder the question further, for he was dragging me to his bedroom.

* * *

When the corset dropped to the floor, I spent five minutes breathing and rubbing my chest until I was me again, plus a few bits of Parisian frippery that, I suspected, were also me, or would be, from time to time.

Holmes watched me. I’d let him rid himself of his evening jacket, unbutton his shirt, and free his erection.

But that was all.

“What is your prick preference, Mister Holmes?” I asked in my corseted voice.

“Seven to eight thousand times a year.”

I laughed.

He was at one end of the bed, stroking his prick. I was at the other end, palming myself gently. A jar of unguent lay open on the bedside table.

“In hand, or in mouth?” I continued.

“In arse, chiefly.”

I giggled. Holmes snorted, then grinned.

“That is satisfactory,” I said. “Arse gives one position, and prevents one,” I bit my cheek, “from keeping it up. That’s all that can be said about arse.”

By the end, we were convulsed with laughter.

“I love you,” I said when my voice was my own again.

“I know,” he replied with a shrug and a theatrical glance at his fingernails.

“Arrogant sod, come here and get what you deserve,” I growled.

I bent him over the width of the bed, shoved his trousers and drawers down and raised his shirttails. Then I straddled him, kneeling.

He gripped my stockinged legs, feeling all along the ribbons and suspenders and lace trimmings.

“More?” I asked as I covered his hand with mine, both of us fingering the silk lasciviously.

“Oh, yes,” he assured me. “That bit of costumery will rear its head again.  But, for now, Watson, please, all due haste. My aristocracy is rising, and my commerce is purpling.”

I snorted. I knew he’d readied himself, but I also knew that readying had been some hours earlier. I was quick, efficient—and not nearly as gentle as my custom.

He raised his head and exhaled a long ‘ah’ at what could only have been an incredible burn.

“Yes, but it’s a incredibly _loving_ burn,” he remarked, like the omniscient git that he was.

I fucked him, but right before I came, I leaned down and whispered,

“You took exquisite care of me today, Holmes. I placed myself in your hands, and I do not regret one moment. I don’t think I shall ever request a repeat performance, but I shall never forget,” I kissed his sweat-damp shoulder, “what it feels like to be your work of art. I love you,” kiss, kiss, kiss, “love you, love you, love you.”

“Watson!”

I rose up and thrust hard, releasing hot, filthy streams inside him. Then I turned him over and sucked him off.

And it ended as it had begun: with something profound and something trivial.

“You possess your own blend of bravery, Watson,” said Holmes as he kissed each of my fingertips. “It is not my own, but it is none the less beautiful. And strong. And marvelous to behold. It is not borne of desperation, or weakness, but rather curiosity, I think, and love. Such trust! I have said before that I never get your limits, and I hope that I I never shall because it is such a joy and privilege to stumble upon another facet, another fascinating facet, of yours, my beloved.”

He smiled. I smiled.

He exchanged his evening clothes for a dressing gown while I rid myself of the last of the frippery.

I crawled into his arms. He cradled me gently, tenderly.

I looked up. He looked down, gazing almost munificently, and said,

“And a fortnight in Norway is certainly more than enough time to regrow a serviceable moustache.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
